1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates broadly to pressurizable enclosures for electronic equipment, particularly telecommunications or signaling equipment. More particularly, the present invention concerns an expandable, modular pressurizable electronic equipment enclosure for telecommunications, signaling, or other electronic equipment, wherein the enclosure includes male and female expansion interfaces that allow for expanding the enclosure by adding substantially similar modules whenever increased capacity is needed. A single cable interface and pressurization control componentry serves all of the modules of the enclosure.
2. Description of the Prior Art
It is often necessary to house telecommunications, signaling, and other similar electronic equipment in protective electronic equipment enclosures so that the electronic equipment may be located safely and reliably wherever needed, which is often in relatively harsh operating environments such as mounted on telephone poles or within subterranean manholes. Thus, the enclosures must be designed to protect the electronic equipment from a wide variety of environmental hazards, such as sun, moisture, dust, and debris, as well as damage from vandalism and attempted theft. Typically, this protection is achieved in part by positively pressurizing the enclosures to prevent potentially damaging and otherwise undesirable moisture and dust from infiltrating and reaching the electronic equipment. Such pressurization may be accomplished by splicing a cable stub into a trunk line in order to carry both electrical signals to and from the electronic equipment and pressurized gas (typically air) to the enclosure.
For example, ever-increasing use of wide area networks (WANs), particularly the Internet, and other telecommunication innovations has increased demand for high-speed, high-bandwidth digital telecommunications services, such as ISDN, (X)DSL, and T1, in homes and businesses. Due to signal propagation limitations, these digital services require special electronic equipment, including repeaters and doublers, to regenerate signals when end users are too far from a provider's central office. It is important that the enclosures safely and securely house multiple repeater units or “cards” or other similar electronic equipment in a space efficient manner.
Increasing demand for these services, however, requires a commensurate increase in capacity over time. Prior art electronic equipment enclosures accommodate only a limited number of the repeater/doubler cards, signaling circuitry, or other electronic equipment, whereafter the only recourse for increasing capacity is to install another separate and complete enclosure. This additional enclosure requires its own cable interface and pressurization control componentry, and a new cable stub needs be spliced into the trunk line and connected to the cable interface componentry. It will be appreciated that increasing capacity in this manner is both undesirably costly and time-consuming.
Thus, there exists a need for an improved electronic equipment enclosure that allows for easily and conveniently increasing capacity.